1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to electronic commerce, and more specifically, to virtual shopping carts within an electronic commerce environment.
2. Discussion of Related Art
A virtual shopping cart, or virtual shopping basket, is a metaphor used within an electronic commerce (hereinafter “e-commerce”) environment to describe a mechanism and/or process of selecting items within an online marketplace for prospective purchase. Typically, a customer visiting an e-commerce website will locate and choose one or more items that she wishes to purchase by placing representations of them into the virtual shopping cart. The actual items may be, for example, real goods (e.g., an article of clothing), virtual goods (e.g., a subscription to an online magazine), or services (e.g., an airline ticket). Any of the items that are selected by the customer may be contained indefinitely in the shopping cart until the customer is ready to complete an order for them (sometimes referred to as “checkout”). For instance, the customer may purchase the items immediately, or leave the website and return at a later time to add items to the shopping cart, remove items from the shopping cart, and/or purchase the items that are contained in the shopping cart.